Some Keep Cool, While Other Wilt In Heat

Choking heat Thursday subdued even those who revel the most in the summer weather: day-campers.

With the mercury spiked at more than 100 degrees across the metropolitan area, many kids who spend their days romping through area parks found that activity curtailed with more time spent in pools or air-conditioned park buildings.

And the weather's dangers were underscored by three incidents in which more than 60 children on three field trips were taken to hospitals after they exhibited signs of dehydration.

For the next few days, the Chicago Park District is limiting field trips to locations within a mile, unless the buses are air-conditioned, said Sheryl Hislop, district spokeswoman.

Two buses stopped at 5:40 p.m. in the Pilsen neighborhood, after some of the children within became faint, a Chicago Fire Department spokesman said. None of the cases was serious, and after playing in water sprayed from a fire hydrant, the kids were fine, the spokesman said.

Twenty-two children from an Archer Park field trip to a Mt. Prospect Park District water park were taken to hospitals when their bus stopped at 18th and Union Streets in Chicago, when some of those children complained they weren't feeling well.

And 17 children on a field trip to Santa's Village in East Dundee were sent to area hospitals when they arrived back at Chicago's Jackson Park.

"The counselors were going out of their way to get drinks to the kids and making frequent stops for water, even buying bottles of water for the kids themselves," Hislop said.

Such a stand-down was the order for an estimated 30,000 children attending the Park District's 793 sports and day camps, a district spokeswoman said.

Some of the suburban camps, such as three run by the park district in Tinley Park, relied on more sophisticated avenues to keep their kids cool.

"We're lucky to have air conditioning," said Cathy Fudacz, who oversees the day camps.

With temperatures in three figures, kids there were treated to movies, "Angels in the Outfield" and "The Mighty Ducks."

"In the five weeks since the camp started, it's only their second movie," Fudacz said.

Fortunately, for the 18 children at the Romeoville Recreation Center, Thursday was "Water Day."

"The kids bring their super soakers and suits. We play with water balloons and in the kiddie pool," said Christy Thomas, program supervisor of that village's day camp. "Every other week, we barbecue. It's a good thing we're not barbecuing today."

At Garfield Park in Chicago, the camp supervisor, Monique Young-Johnson, kept her charges cloistered in the golden-domed fieldhouse or submerged in a roiling pool.

"I wouldn't want my child out in 100-degree heat," Young-Johnson said, after adjudicating a dispute between campers over bean bags.

Still, the kids there shrugged off the climes, dancing in the pool.

There were some exceptions.

"I feel like I'm going to faint," said Shamika Saunders, 8, in a stage whisper. "I'm just burning up."

And then there was the sorry lot of youngsters who showed up without swimming suits.

" I feel so sorry for them," Young-Johnson said, noting that, without suits, there was no chance for a reprieve.

At poolside, lifeguards vetted campers to see if they could swim.

"You can't be outside in this weather; you can't be inside," supervisor Michael Scott Jr. said. "The best place is in the pool."

The Condell Day Center for Intergenerational Care in Libertyville went into furnace mode. Pre-schoolers and elderly both stayed inside doing calm activities, where only half the lights were used, blinds were closed and everyone was drinking cold liquids .

"We're even putting ice water in the vans that we use to transport seniors," said child care Director Lynn Allison.

The Geneva Park District canceled its Thursday afternoon day camps.

"It's too much for them," said recreation Supervisor Tammy Huber. "They get kind of cranky."

Thursday morning, all children were kept inside air-conditioned buildings. One group worked on self-esteem exercises-an activity, Huber explained, requiring little physical exertion.

Besides curbing kids' activities, supervisors had to cool off some hotheads.

Kids' tempers, Horner Park supervisor Sweeney said, are just as likely as those of adults to wilt under the heat.

"You can hear all the people yelling at each other out of car windows when it's hot," Sweeney said. "Why should kids be any different?"

Daniel Branecki, 10, was a noncombatant in a water balloon skirmish that raged a few feet away from him at Horner Park.

He had decommissioned himself, he said, to preserve the integrity of new shoes-"they cost 79 smackeroos"-with which his mother gifted him on his recent birthday.

"Tomorrow I'm going to wear my old shoes," he vowed. "I'm going to have a humongous water fight."

Despite the increased license to throw water at his fellow campers, Daniel said, there were some things, such as his camp counselor, that the weather could not alter.

"Whether it's hot or whether it's not hot, she's still mean," he said.